Spencer and I stumbled upon a new inexpensive family activity, one that I had never thought of before.

A new Petco opened up one town over not too long ago and last week, on our quest for big boy underwear, we popped in and visited with all the four-legged, two-legged, winged, finned and scaled friends. Today we needed to return one of the packages of underwear because I wanted to trade up a size. The other set I bought was washing just a bit too small. (That Spencer had three accidents in 30 minutes and only one success had nothing to do with it. Really.)

Anyway, C. and A were with us and to sweeten the prospect of spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon underwear shopping (to be fair it wasn’t really the whole afternoon, but still), I told them that we would also make a fun stop. Both of them looked at me like I had seven heads when I told them we were going to Petco (actually, A. got really excited because she thought we were getting a dog), but they rolled with it.

If you are looking for more inexpensive family activities to do, the pet store is definitely worth a shot. At our Petco on weekends they have dogs that are up for adoption out on the floor in open-top cages. The dogs love the attention and my kids had so much fun playing with and petting them.

And even if the dogs aren’t around (there were cats in cages too) there are plenty of animals to visit with. We saw birds, lizards, fish, ferrets, hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, turtles and more. It’s like going to the zoo, but as if you are actually inside the gift shop. And while a trip to the pet store isn’t the longest of the inexpensive family activities, it’s good for at least a half hour. Any Petco near my house is part of a larger shopping center, so it also makes for a nice break for your little ones if you are out shopping for a few hours. (Plus, did I mention it’s free?)

We even got a funny story out of our excursion. Spencer and I met a dog named C. who was sort of just resting on his pet bed when we came along. Funnily enough, when C. walked over, the dog instinctively stood up, wagged his tail and nudged human C.’s hand. I guess he knew they shared an awesome name! (Not to mention, Spencer was delighted that there was a dog that had the same name as his big brother. He got the biggest kick out of it.)

What inexpensive family activities are your favorites?

Want to learn more about Spencer? Check out Shock and Aww on Facebook and my other parenting blog, We Are Both Right. Also, I’m on Twitter too. (Because I have all this time on my hands.